The war against scrapping it has already started. The Federal and State legislators are planning to stop ISPs have their way and stop already developing plans to ISPs to say what can be viewed and what can’t be viewed.

With the policies that were established in 2015 have been scrapped, and many (other than the users) are concerned. The ISPs will create streams of fast moving and slow-moving content.

Why are educators concerned?

Educators are concerned as there’s a lot of educational content (specifically what is free and open source) that will end up in slow streams. ISPs may favor (or at least have the freedom to) entertainment websites over academic websites. Whatever generates more revenue will take precedence over everything else. The commercial websites can invest much more than libraries, education institutions and online learning forums giving away online course material.

Shortly after the voting, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) in their statement called the change “disappointing and concerning.” They added that schools and districts will now have to face a “bleak reality”. Even the American Library Association had strongly opposed FCA’s decision even before the voting was to happen calling it to cause a vital concern for the libraries across the nation. The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) also expressed their concern for the impediment of learning of learners from rural and low-income communities with the end of net neutrality.

Even though 16 US senators, including Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Patty Murray of Washington who’s the ranking Democrat on the Health and Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote an appeal/ letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. They requested Pai to consider the impact on students and schools, especially in rural areas. But the appeal didn’t stop the board to repeal the landmark net neutrality framework. The letter to Pai presented interesting stats as per which P-12 schools have enabled high-speed internet connection for students and something that has a tremendous impact on nation’s students ‘ability to learn. In 2013, there were 40 million students who were in schools and not meeting the 100 kbps per student threshold. That changed in 2017 with a mere 6.5 million school students not meeting this goal. The gap narrowed by 84 percent. The letter emphasizes the importance of high-speed internet for a rich educational experience of students from early childhood to higher education and workforce training.

The letter states that the P-12 education system in US heavily relies on open internet for access to free-flowing content. Even the teachers depend on internet to collaborate with other teachers and keep themselves abreast with the best educational content from around the globe. The biggest impact of the end of net neutrality will be schools in the rural areas.

In an article titled, Digital Life in the Slow Lane, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, as per Joseph South, CLO or Chief Learning Officer at International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and Eden Dahlstrom, who’s the Executive Director for the New Media Consortium said, higher education will face a new online world — one in which the almighty dollar, not equity, will reign. It might be disappointing to learn that the right of disadvantaged students to access high-quality education can be disproportionately compromised. It will be meant for those who can afford add-on service packages that increase internet speed.

How will changes in net neutrality have university students suffer?

University campus without a robust, uninterrupted and high-speed internet is impossible. There is so much that is dependent on internet, devices and applications that are internet-connected. Collaboration, study, research and communication, even transactional activities – it all depends on having an internet that is not biased towards a content. Imagine if a student can’t access high-speed internet off the campus, they will be deprived of using learning management system, interacting with colleagues, access course material and research for and submit assignments.

University researchers must analyze huge amounts of data seeking patterns to help them with insights. But if the sponsors can’t pay for high-speed internet or a large fee for a reasonable download speed anymore, it will deeply impact the research work.

None of the changes, mentioned above, will happen overnight. Even though the ISPs have assured that none of what is feared will happen, most of the people are skeptical. People believe that ISPs will start selling services in bundles soon, which implies that you pay premium subscription in case you wish to access certain apps and websites.

Do you think changes to net neutrality will impact keen learners in a negative way? Share your opinion in the comments section below.

The post How will killing Net Neutrality impact education? appeared first on Plexus.

In 2016, only 38% companies were using Artificial Intelligence. The percentage will increase to 62% next year. There was a study from Forrester Research that predicted an increase of 300% in AI investments in 2017. The increase will skyrocket next year.

There are other experts who also feel the same and add that in 2019, AI will be used for personalized and specialized decision-making and admin kind of support. For example, monitoring to-do lists, scheduling meetings are some examples of how value can be derived from AI-powered tools. These can learn from preferences and behaviors and create from specialized experience for the users. IDC also predicted a growth in the AI market will grow to $47 billion in 2020 from a $ 8 billion in 2016.

We’re talking big numbers here as if AI will grow by leaps and bounds. Well, the reality is – it will!

Google developed AI program that has already been successful at beating the top human player at the game of Go. The program uses general machine learning techniques to win the game. That’s not all. We have already seen Google, Facebook and Microsoft using deep learning to understand natural language, identify images and detect spoken words. There was a video shared on Inc that revealed true but scary details about what AI can do.

Some of the major advancements that are predicted in 2019 are speech recognition, new machine learning platforms, enhanced role of AI in decision management, AI-optimized hardware, an increase in deep learning platforms, and increased use of AI in biometrics.

As per Bernard Marr, business author and keynote speaker and consultant in strategy, enterprise performance and technology, the year 2019 will be the year when Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will continue to grab attention (like it did in 2017), but there will be more dramatized headlines related to robots replacing human jobs.

The battle between AI hardware manufacturers can turn intense in 2019. The chipmakers (the hardware that AI lives on) will start a battle next year that’s been longstanding for a while. However, author Chris Wiltz feels that there will be no single company that will dominate the AI hardware landscape. The hardware requirements will vary as per the application need.

Mark Michalski who’s an Executive Director at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Center for Clinical Data Science predicted that the healthcare industry is expected to adopt AI in a big way in 2019. It seems like diagnostic medical specialties will be the first to completely adopt AI. It is expected that there will be solution for population health, hospital operations and a wide range of specialties. On a global scale, there will be a change in the way patients experience healthcare and the way healthcare providers work.

Adds Christian Boucher who’s a Healthcare Evangelist at Citrix that analytics will be big in healthcare in 2019. Patient population tools are expected to help optimize workflows for in-patient and out-patient scenarios.

There will be an interesting AI development in 2019 that will include smartphone applications with neural networks to enable AI. You won’t believe but you will also start seeing friendly and affordable robots at home. The AI challenges of vision, language and speech will be addressed next year as well. AI will also be helpful in cyber security tools. It will help to detect vulnerabilities and security gaps in the cyber world. Bots will use machine learning algorithms to plug security challenges instantly.

To summarize, we’d like to share some facts that are turning real soon.

• Experts say that more than 70% developers will start using AI in business applications and services by next year
• All IoT initiatives will be backed up by Artificial Intelligence
• More than 30% companies will use AI in their sales process by 2020
• In 2020, algorithms will alter the behavior of majority of the workforce worldwide
• In 2025, more than 95% of customer interactions will be AI-driven

We may sit back thinking that AI is meant for the biggies (for example Amazon has been investing in AI for the last 20 years). Google has more than 1300 researchers for Google brain and Facebook already has over 80 AI researchers and engineers. But all the experts are pointing towards only one conclusion – AI is coming for you. Get ready.

The post Why do we think that AI will be an epidemic in 2019? appeared first on Plexus.

However, one of the most cost-effective internet marketing techniques that can deliver result in a very short amount of time is Social Media Marketing (SMM).

SMM is a tried and tested marketing method that can help improve your brand’s visibility as well as help increase your site’s traffic and ranking. Moreover, it is also the best way through which you can be in constant touch with your existing clients as well as garner new leads for your business.

But, one on hand, while it is easy to set-up social media accounts for your website on different social channels on the other hand, marketing your products or services effectively on social media can prove to be difficult without proper knowledge. There are different strategies that work the best for different channels. Thus, to help you solve this dilemma, here is an infographic that provides 15+ actionable tips that will help drive your social media marketing campaign.

This beginner’s guide comprises of the best social media practices that you need to undertake to succeed. It also provides you with a list of social media channels that you need to focus on, to begin with. In addition, it also offers you an insight as to how Indian companies are using social media marketing to improve their customer base.

The best part of this infographic is that you can print or download it as a Free PDF and keep it handy for future reference. Therefore, look at this comprehensive social marketing guide now and implement the strategies that are mentioned here to boost your social media marketing campaign.

The Ultimate Guide – Social Media Marketing [Infographic] by the team at Capsicum Mediaworks, LLP

Author- Nirav Dave is the CTO & Co-Founder at Capsicum Mediaworks, a digital agency based out of Mumbai, India that specializes in all things Web Design & WordPress. He Worships WordPress and Loves to read anything and everything about this exceptional CMS.

The post Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Marketing – 15+ Actionable Tips (Infographic) appeared first on Plexus.

The pressure to keep up with the trends is particularly high during this time of the year. Even big and elite companies around the globe are stressed out (probably more than the small ones). I want to take off the pressure off your shoulders and list down the trends that will truly and really make a difference.

2019 is an exciting year for technology (we hear this every year) but let me make a distinction this year. For an entire year we heard about Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Big Data. But now gone is the time when these topics are only written about – it’s action time!

So, let’s look at the software development trends in 2019 that will happen.

Demand for IoT professionals will skyrocket

IoT is impacting everything. Your cars, houses, roads, industrial equipment, smartwatch and even your vacuum cleaner is turning into a data collection device. These devices are collecting enormous amounts of data to derive intelligent and actionable insights.

You need IoT experts to build systems that can help you integrate smart devices, network connectivity and computer-based systems. You will need professionals who are experts on information management, big data, machine learning and analytics, dashboard and visualizations.

Like as per Hubert Yoshida, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi, “Building IoT solutions that provide real value can be difficult without the right underlying architecture and a deep understanding of the business to properly simulate and digitalize operational entities and processes”.

Cybersecurity to get more sophisticated

Since 2017 was a year of data breaches so naturally 2019 will a year that hackers will get more sophisticated. Yes, to everybody’s horror they will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to launch even more serious and dangerous attacks. Even cybersecurity solutions will use machine learning and cutting-edge security technologies. There will be an increased demand for managed and hosted security services just like there will be an increase in incident response and adoption of automated processes to detect threats.

Emergence of Blockchain

We have already heard a lot about Blockchain already. 2019 is expected to be a year that will mark the year of disruption in terms of business-class blockchain platforms. There will be an increase in the number of apps built for blockchain platforms. Till 2016 there were only 5000 full-time blockchain developers around the globe. In the coming years, the number will increase multi-fold. The blockchain solutions from different sources will acquire the capability to seamlessly communicate and share digital assets with each other.

Artificial Intelligence – indispensable

Microsoft has set up its own internal “university” to train Microsoft staff in the field of artificial intelligence. You don’t have to follow Microsoft. Not yet.

But you can’t ignore AI anymore. Every business in 2019 will need to adopt AI. Voice-assistants, big data, insight-as-a-service vendors will all be in demand just as AI specialized professionals like data scientists and Chief Data Officers (CDO). Enterprises will start to streamline and automate back-end processes with customer-facing AI capabilities. The enterprises will also explore how combing AI, machine learning and other tools (like the internet of things, augmented and virtual reality and others) to augment front- and back-end capabilities.

Investment on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality set to soar

Spending on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality software is set to increase. Even the hardware is to become a $4 billion market by 2019. There are a greater number of applications using the power of AR and VR, and more recently mixed reality (AR and VR made available on PC).

If you want to up your software development game in 2019, it’s not too late. We have experts who have deep insights and experience of working on each of the technologies listed above. Talk to us today.

The post Up your game with these top software development trends set to dominate 2019 appeared first on Plexus.

Image Source: https://blogs.volunteermatch.org/engagingvolunteers/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Gratitude-Quote.jpg

Yes, Thanksgiving is a time to binge and indulge, but besides the festivities, I always like to think of everything that there is a reason to be thankful for. This Thanksgiving, Plexus is thankful for all the complex and exciting new challenges on our projects, we are grateful for all the new technologies and the hype around them, competitors who give us reason to thrive, and our people who sacrifice their family time to go the extra mile to ensure timely and high-quality deliverables, and our clients who trust us year after year.

1. Complex and exciting new challenges

We treat new challenges as hidden opportunities. If there are complex project issues and difficult problems on our projects that are waiting a solution, we are challenged to think and look for solutions. This is exactly what pushes us to be innovative and think ‘out-of-the-box’. Status quo bothers us. We don’t want to continue doing what we do best and keep on working on solving new problems.

Software bugs are another opportunity to learn something new. Now, does that sound weird? Of course, we don’t like bugs but can we have our perfect code sans them? Rather than our clients uncovering them, we are thankful for every bug that we can find in our code and the opportunity we get to solve it.

2. New technologies and all the noise around it

If there are new technologies, we see that as an opportunity to learn. IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Voice-based interfaces, and advanced cybersecurity. We are grateful for the constant changes in technologies as it helps us to keep learning and give a competitive advantage even to our clients. It’s not easy to decipher what is of real value from all the noise around everything new but that is where our research helps us. There are a lot of businesses that deem research to be a wasteful investment in noise but we see that as an opportunity to learn and innovate.

3. Our Competitors

Our competitors help us to constantly think ahead and stay ahead of the curve. We, of course, like to constantly learn and explore new ways of doing things. But at times when we get lazy, our competitors don’t let us be in that state. To stay ahead of the curve, our competitors motivate us to think better and deliver superior services to our clients.

4. Our people who sacrifice their family time for work

Plexus tremendously values work-life balance but, at times, our people must sacrifice their family time or sleep for important client deliverables. We are grateful to our people and their families for sacrificing personal time for work. We are grateful for the passion and zeal that people bring to work every single day to help us ensure that we truly deliver excellence.

5. Clients

Our clients are the reason that we are in business, and we are of course always thankful to them. We also wish to thank all our clients who give us new and difficult challenges to work upon, ask tough questions, and expect a lot from us- we love them all as they help us up our game a notch higher. We truly appreciate our clients who tell us our faults and drawbacks, and give us an opportunity to work upon them.

The post 5 things that make Plexus truly grateful appeared first on Plexus.

Through Business Intelligence or BI, organizations can have the data they need to enable them to make informed, intelligent decisions about the different aspects of their business, such as operations and marketing.

One area where BI solutions prove to be indispensable is in sales. After all, being able to track, monitor, and understand relationships among variables (customers, products, and pricing) can spell the difference between business success and failure.

Here, we discuss the top five benefits that business intelligence tools can offer sales professionals so they can up their game, make profitable decisions, and ultimately make their business grow.

Image Source: https://proactys.swiss/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/data_analysis.png

Deliver effective marketing campaigns

Through powerful analytical tools, BI solutions can provide companies with valuable information that can be utilized to drive sales. BI software enables organizations to capitalize on existing customer relationships to drive upsells and cross-sells, and effectively deliver targeted marketing campaigns.

BI solutions help companies to identify gaps in sales–which product groups are selling, and which are not? The critical information provided by BI software allows decision-makers to come up with solutions to address the sales gaps as well as identify areas for potential growth.

Share relevant business data and create reports efficiently

In many organizations, business data is often recorded and kept in different data storage solutions and systems. Now the requires sales professionals to, sometimes, request for information from different departments, and then try to collate different reports into one. You can see how this uses up a lot of time and resources, an issue that can be easily be addressed when you use business intelligence tools.

BI software provides companies with a central, single source of relevant business data, integrating seamlessly with existing company systems such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Point of Sale (PoS), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

This integration allows sales professionals to access relevant data and gather insights quickly. In addition, reports can be created and shared in a more efficient and productive manner, resulting in a better understanding of business data, a more streamlined business operation, and a more collaborative and transparent sales culture.

Some of the best BI tools that allow for customized reporting are Clear Analytics, SAP Business Intelligence, Microstrategy, Intelex Business Management Software, Birst, DBxtra, Stonefield Query, Profitbase Suite, Tableau Business Intelligence, and InfoZoom. You can read business intelligence tool reviews to understand which BI software suite will be a good fit for your company.

Improve customer service and increase customer satisfaction

BI solutions provide companies with information about customers–both target and existing–such as customer preferences, demographics, feedback, and current market trends. Gathering data is made easier with BI software that can automatically harvest information such as social media comments and ratings, product purchases, blog post views, ad clicks, and email queries.

Knowing what customers want or think about your company’s products or services enables you to respond and meet those needs by improving your performance and product offerings. This, in turn will put you in a good light as a company that actually listens to your customers. By giving customers a better overall experience, your company will increase customer satisfaction and eventually brand loyalty.

Make intelligent, data-driven decisions

You can have all the business data that you want, but if you don’t make sense of it through analysis, it’s not going to help you come up with good business decisions. BI software addresses this need to turn raw data into useful information so you can make intelligent and profitable decisions.

According to a study, a data-driven decision has a 79 percent higher chance of success compared with a decision based on pure intuition. Thanks to BI solutions, you won’t have to rely on intuition–you’ll have a solid quantitative foundation on which to base your decisions.

BI software provides organizations not only with historical and current views of business operations but also with predictive analysis so they can determine the outcome of a proposed project or opportunity. This is important for sales professionals so they can identify best practices and sales analyses to see what works and what can be improved.

Facilitate interdepartmental support and coordination

BI analyses and reports benefit not only the sales team but also other departments such as marketing and operations, which will also be able to better plan according to their objectives.

The marketing team, for example, can coordinate with the sales team and get information that can help them determine which campaigns are driving sales and which are not. They can then make strategic decisions and refine campaigns. And because data is updated in real-time, other departments will be able to see the relevant information that they need to improve their own processes.

Conclusion

Listed above are five of the best benefits that BI solutions can offer sales-based businesses. With BI software, companies can manage and update different data points and key performance indicators from one hub. Using BI tools is the fast, easy, and efficient way to get relevant information to help you decide on the best steps to take to drive business growth.

Author Bio:

Erika is a marketing specialist for Betterbuys.com. Better Buys has become a trusted authority for delivering unbiased, expert insights on the software and technology that businesses rely on. You can follow us at @Better_Buys

The post Business Intelligence for Sales: The Must-Know Benefits appeared first on Plexus.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) facility has been a propeller to encourage Shadow IT – isn’t it? Employees get to choose their mobile devices, the software they wish to install, and the way they wish to transmit data (all thanks to Cloud, SaaS and PaaS applications). There are many ways to bypass the IT department.

Not all employees understand the implications of data security and compliance related to corporate data. Legacy firewalls and security tools are not enough to monitor everything going on in the organization. On-premises firewall fails to register the information that is being exchanged when cloud resources are sending the data back and forth.

Shadow IT is a huge risk that neither the IT department can ignore, nor the CIO or CTO can ignore. It is being called the consumerization of IT. There are huge risks associated with Risk IT for example, Software Asset Management compliance issues, challenges in adopting standards like ISO, failure to manage software updates successfully, and issue with configuration management.

Image Source: https://blogs-images.forbes.com/davelewis/files/2015/05/shadow-it.jpg

What is Shadow IT?

If you want me to give you a proper definition of Shadow IT, well, I’ll go with what Wikipedia says. Shadow IT is a term often used to describe information-technology systems and solutions built and used inside organizations without explicit organizational approval. It is also used, along with the term “Stealth IT”, to describe solutions specified and deployed by departments other than the IT department.

Is the situation really that bad?

Thankfully, it isn’t.

The next-gen security tools are advanced and smart enough to detect even the smallest of data leaks. They can sniff each data packet that goes out or comes in the virtual environment. The IT teams can have the visibility to apply security policies on cloud resources. There are many organizations who believe that if they partner with a reliable security expert, they can keep their IaaS resources away from any threats.

Organizations that are already using cloud services rely on the security measures of their SaaS or IaaS provider. Is it an advisable thing to do? Perhaps it is. While cloud security vendors are responsible for ensuring infrastructure security, the security of the apps and data is your responsibility. If you haven’t heard of the term shared responsibility model, this is exactly what it is.

What can you do about Shadow IT?

Your first instinct will be to clamp down on Shadow IT in order to control it. The IT departments see it as a major threat as they constantly have to deal with security risks, inefficiencies, duplicate technologies, and it can even become an obstacle in moving your IT department ahead.

The organizations need to first identify the root cause for Shadow IT. They have to evaluate the weak areas in their IT systems, then take into confidence, each department, to understand how IT department can help them with the required software, and finally use it as an opportunity to reinstitute the IT function with the responsibility of a single person to overlook the software used.

There are some best practices to face Shadow IT in your organization.

• People in the organization often complain that their IT departments take forever to approve a new software request. Expedite that. Categorize each request as high, medium and low and have a turnaround time for each
• Leverage cloud. Suggest your own security measures and also let your cloud implementation partner suggest, discuss and deploy their own security measures
• Ensure that each person in the organization is aware of the repercussions of regulations failure or inability to comply. Make policies and also make people aware about them
• Understand the logic behind Shadow IT operations and you may allow it to continue for a short time if the business unit gives a fair explanation for its use
• Interact with all the business units regularly and understand their business requirements

If you need some more insight into the best ways to combat Shadow IT, you can have a word with our experts to know more.

The post Fear not! Get ready to face Shadow IT appeared first on Plexus.

Basically, Cloud is a suite of enterprise-level technologies, allowing businesses to draw their computing power and data from a centrally managed pool of computing resources, including software licenses and servers. By leveraging its benefits, companies are able to reduce IT operating costs with increased server utilization. It aligns IT to business requirements (reducing new product time to market) by providing a more agile and scalable computing infrastructure.

From messaging and collaboration (Google Apps) to CRM (salesforce.com) and high-performance computing (Amazon Web Services), many functions are delivered through the cloud. Not to surprise, many IT heavyweights like IBM, and HP have committed dollars to market a bulk of services and products. Gartner, declared cloud computing as the second focused area in 2010.

But many companies still face a number of challenges when it comes to of migration and security.

Knowing about the cloud will not answer the question whether you should migrate to the cloud or not. I have compiled five questions that will clear your doubts for the same.

1. Are you struggling to budget for technology purchases?

Businesses can achieve significantly lower cost of ownership for their IT resources by turning to the cloud. It saves you from purchasing of expensive servers and software licenses. As cloud service provider maintains the hardware and software, maintenance issues such as servers that are down or outdated servers get reduced. Further, you pay for what you use according to the usage of software or storage.

2. Is it tough for you to manage the network infrastructure?

It is usual for a business to run the website, email, file storage, backup, finance, accounting programs, and security management, all on one server with its control and management by an overworked IT manager.

Now if you get an application with the latest equipment that works securely over the Internet with hosting on a server farm, and managed by IT experts around the clock. The result will be an unexpected rise in traffic to your website will not crash your entire network as it might, with on-premise, server-based applications.

The service providers are available 24/7 responds with the higher service levels and functional expertise to solve multiple issues. The main benefit of the cloud infrastructure is computers require less software that results in fewer conflicts.

3. Are you not able to keep up with current trends like mobility, or to implement changes?

In the cloud, a vendor manages the majority of hardware, software, security, and maintenance; a cloud-based infrastructure is scalable and responsive, and you can leverage new capabilities and implement all changes quickly.

Mobile workforce accommodation becomes a cinch when all applications and resources of your company are hosted online. The users simply connect through a Web browser (desktop, remote laptop, or mobile device) to access the complete power of the online network.

Integration tools and Robust Application Programming Interface (API) bring different online software together. For example, Salesforce CRM software to interact on different social media platforms or connect billing services to bookkeeping software.

4. Do you have other essential operations to cater?

You will be able to focus on your core business with the cloud computing infrastructure. There will be fewer servers to manage and fewer computer failures, and you will get time to develop strategies to grow while giving your company the required tools and processes.

According to many companies, an efficient IT department is one that provides securing networks and ensures the working of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system. However, it is the one that helps businesses to use technology to achieve goals strategically.

5. Do you want to secure company’s digital assets?

There are many cloud solution providers like AWS that provides secure computing services and effective management. Many small businesses consider hybrid as the best solution, where they use a part of data in the cloud and leave remaining on company premises.

Still, viruses can attack your local computers and can destroy your network by spreading malware. The solution is the secure backup that protects your computers, local data, on-premise servers, overall network, and applications.

I hope you have got all the answers regarding cloud benefits and its migration.

The following steps will help you to plan and make your business ready to enter the next phase of cloud computing.

a) Guide your team

Your team needs to understand that migrating to the cloud is not outsourcing and not even a way to cut jobs, but it’s an opportunity to grow. Your IT professionals will be able to participate in other strategic work as most of the grunt work of maintenance and infrastructure deployment will be performed by a cloud provider. You can even provide training from experts and get their skills certified like AWS certification that proves your acumen in the cloud computing.

b) Every project should be “Cloud first.”

If you are going to launch a new application, then start with cloud-based solutions and make the cloud base of it. Corporate developers become masters of strategy with a cloud-first policy and can outpace competitors.

c) Development to the public cloud.

Cloud grants on-demand access to scalable resources and pay as you go service has helped developers to test, tweak, replicate and retest in an environment that replicates the environment of production. Your cloud migration will save several hours of IT operational resources while allowing to work on other important projects.

d) Review of IT maintenance schedule.

It is essential to keep a check on planned hardware and software upgrades. It can be disruptive when it comes to major upgrades and even can be time-consuming to implement and costly to buy. Try to sync planned upgrades with your cloud project in possible situations. You may even decide to keep specific workloads in your on-site data center for some time.

e) Organize a cross-functional team

Find out workloads to migrate. You will be able to build trust of line of business executives who consider IT a major roadblock to work. Your audience is likely to get attracted with the term “fast solutions.”

f) Hire an expert provider

A lack of knowledge and few resources to spare are two problems that businesses face while developing their cloud strategies. The third-party service provider which carries expertise in risk assessment and strategy development can help from planning to management of a project. Choose that service provider that not only focuses on a tech flash cut but also on the successful business outcome.

g) Plan your cloud needs

Prior to moving strategic workloads, take out some time to consider how you will manage your cloud. It may sound time-consuming to you but look forward to the inevitable time when most of the work will be delivered by cloud. There are many cloud service providers; you can go for the one which provides the managed service options.

h) Create your migration project plan

It is the crucial on-ramp to the cloud journey of your company. Identify low-risk workloads with the help of your experts and cross-functional team and move them to cloud. It will be a good start. The best bets are web-based workloads that are not critical to the working of business, and that do not require much interaction with data sources from outside.

“This article is written by Danish Wadhwa of Simplilearn. It is one of the leading certification training providers. Danish Wadhwa is a strategic thinker and an IT Pro. With more than six years of expertise in the digital marketing industry, he is more than a results-driven individual. He is well-versed in providing high-end technical support, optimizing sales and automating tools to stimulate productivity for businesses.”

The post Are you ready to enter the next phase of cloud computing? appeared first on Plexus.

Earlier this year, Google announced its shift from mobile first to AI-first. Sundar Pichai emphasized that Google will be focusing more on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. For example with the neural machine, it is now possible to understand 96 languages and make 2 billion translations per day. Another example is the use of Google Maps – when you view any address on Google maps, the street signs and restaurant signs are automatically detected and reflected.

Pichai added that in the next 10 years the world will move towards AI-first. Computing will be universally available like home, work, on the go or even while you’re traveling. Interacting with the surfaces will be on the basis of more natural, intelligent and intuitive interactions.

Image Source: https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/i-o_wed_keynote_mr_57.jpg

What has changed over the last few years?

User interactions have undergone changes in a big way. Changes are still happening.

Every industry, specially banking, healthcare, law, retail, e-Commerce and many others, have to think of innovative ways of giving best customer experience through multiple touch points. The creative industry is evolving methods of design with AI-assisted design. For example, Logojoy is using AI for logo production, which is a rote task, so that designers can focus more on logo design thinking. Every Enterprise has to re-imagine new ways of introducing more than a single way of making payments across a number of locations to meet rising customer expectations. Google, Facebook and Amazon have been the leaders in making this big shift. The key motivator of this big shift has been to provide a rich and insightful driven customer experience based on an intelligent understanding of their needs, motivations and requirements. For example, banks were quick enough to build mobile apps that enabled customers to view their accounts, make transactions like making payments and transferring funds. Almost everybody ran after making mobile apps or making their website mobile-friendly but while the mobile-first revolution was underway, something else started to brew. Customer expectations were increasing. They expected their mobile apps to be something more than just a day-to-day aid. They wanted something more intelligence and futuristic. For example, the need for their banking app to predict the best investment that will work for them or given their credit score, what is the likelihood of their reaching a particular savings amount.

With the help of deep learning, voice recognition has become big. We all have extensively started using Alexa and Siri to communicate with devices. Vision recognition is also getting big with claims from Google that their computer vision systems are capable of image recognition (and they can perform that function even better than humans).

Even small and mid-sized businesses can no longer ignore AI. AI-driven software will be used for better decision making, machine learning tools will help to predict outcomes, and the future will witness machines outperforming humans for a number of tasks and that too cost effectively. Machines will orchestrate optimized interactions for every customer across multiple channels.

What are some of the key things that business leaders should keep in mind to brace themselves for AI?

• Define your business goals clearly
• Identify a reliable and unified source for collating data (especially customer data)
• Integrate your marketing and technology investments
• Shift the focus from channel optimization to customer optimization (get rid of inter-department silos)
• Focus on cross-functional customer experiences
• Ensure you have a strong feedback mechanism (to get better customer insights)

It is better to be prepared for the inevitable future of AI. Go ahead, take action now.

The post The transition from mobile-first to AI-first is not only for Google but it’s coming for you too appeared first on Plexus.

The idea may seem simple – information from a number of sources (that includes unstructured and streaming data, and data generated from IoT devices can be analyzed in the cloud. Further, if the data analysis can be used to uncover a market pattern, and transformed into actionable insights. Something that can give any Enterprise a competitive advantage over others.

Image Source: https://b-i.forbesimg.com/oracle/files/2012/12/Fotolia_41498462_M.jpg

Besides other industries, there are top 10 industries that Big Data will disrupt in a big way – These include Banking, Infrastructure, Retail, Real Estate, Legal, Insurance, Agriculture, Energy, Transport, and Telecommunications. That hardly leaves any industry. As an industry, we have understood how data can be compiled. The problem remains with using, analyzing, and presenting data. Let’s take a look at some of the Big Data trends that we should keep ourselves braced for.

More focus on predictive analysis

Big Data is all about data. That is something that we already know. Now that we have collected all this data, we need to focus on analytics. Enterprises should be able to use the data that they have collected over the past years to represent their performance and also provide predictive analytics.

In the competitive and dynamic business world of today, it is all the more critical to remain prepared for future trends and technologies. Therefore, Big Data can go a long way in helping enterprises to make informed decisions. For example, the best hotel deals for a couple who just booked their flight for the summer holidays.

You can improve fraud detection, minimize risk exposure and improve operational excellence with predictive analysis.

Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning

You can’t ignore AI and Deep Learning when you’re talking about Big Data. AI is driven with the help of Big Data. Deep Learning is a part of Machine Learning that can create artificial neural networks to help figure out patterns in Big Data.

Hadoop Solutions

Of course Big Data has grown beyond Hadoop. But if you have access to Hadoop professionals, you can build the simplicity and flexibility of Windows solutions to Hadoop. A Hadoop cluster can be deployed on Windows Azure, and this will help to accelerate setup in the Cloud.

Focus on Cloud-based Analytics

If you move your data analytics in the cloud, you can help improve the adoption of the most updated functionalities and turn them to your advantage. You can even save on costs if you move data analytics to the cloud.

Big Data as-a-self-service

Enterprises have started to realize that they can actually leverage the mountain of data that they have collected over the past years. One of the services that they can offer to their clients is access to their proprietary data in the form of Big Data as-a-self-service. The insights derived from the business can be used to drive more meaningful actions.

Each year more and more data is being generated and Enterprises are worried to maintain its value and quality. The success of big data depends on data integrity and that can be provided only with the help of an expert.

Big data is about explosion. There are terabytes (or trillions of bytes) of data that most of the Enterprises are sitting over without realizing that they may have data that is doubling every 6 months. It’s a flood of data that just continues as Enterprises should fast learn to leverage from it.

Do you want to discuss how you can leverage Big Data in your Enterprise with Plexus experts?

The post What are some Big Data Trends that you just can’t miss? appeared first on Plexus.